News reaches us this week that those boffins down at The Royal Society are 350 years old this year and as part of their year long celebration of geekery they’re currently holding a very unique and fun festival at the Southank Centre!

Further: The Festival of Science + Arts is a unique ten-day festival with runs until July 4 2010 and explores the links between the sciences and arts and features a host of cross-disciplinary collaborations, scientific and artistic events.

For those who don’t know, The Royal Society is quite a big deal when it comes to world of science and it looks like the celebs have been queuing up to attend.

King of Nerds Stephen Fry was seen quaffing gin and tonics at the festival last night alongside Tim Berners-Lee, only the inventor of the bloody World Wide Web.  Mahiki eat your heart out!

There are dozens of events going on throughout the festival, but our favourite one still to come has to be a beautiful walking tour taking place along the Thames between the Southbank Centre and the Tower of London. Unlike a lot of the cheesy London tours you get around the Thames, the See Further tour will explain the science that keeps our city alive. The only tickets left are for tomorrow though – so you better be quick!

We’re also looking forward to the Beautiful Noise panel with Professor Robert Winston (that bloke off Child Of Our Time) which explores the science and evolution of music. Cool, huh? Let’s hope Professor Winston’s impressive moustache fits through the door.

With our daily lives so full of computers, TVs, mobile phones and iPods it’s hard to imagine a time when the most popular leisure activity was sitting down with a good book and a cup of tea. Trying to ignite the nation’s passion for the written word is World Book Day, which takes place this year on Thursday March 4th.

So, in our bid to honour the great wordsmiths of days gone by, we’ve collected together a few quotes about our favourite city in the world.

The best quotes about London

1) “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
Samuel Johnson

2) “I don’t know what London’s coming to – the higher the buildings the lower the morals”
Noel Coward

3) “I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining.”
Groucho Marx

4) “Nothing is certain in London but expense.”
William Shenstone

5) It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from Sherlock Holmes in The Copper Beeches

6) “London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

7) “I do not think there is anything deserving the name of society to be found out of London.”
William Hazlitt

8 ) “Flowers are as common in the country as people are in London.”
Oscar Wilde

9) “In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals”
Virgil Thomson

10) “Hell is a city much like London – A populous and a smoky city.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley

If you want to take part in World Book Day why not check out our favourite literary events in London!

Celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 with the launch of a new book from Action Aid; See Me, Hear me, Read me.

Action Aid, an international development charity that aims to fight poverty worldwide, is launching the book to generate further awareness about the plight of women in developing countries.

See Me, Hear Me, Read Me is a unique collaboration between some famous faces and women in developing countries coming together in celebration of their gender. The collection contains haiku inspired poems from the likes of Carol Ann Duffy, Judi Dench, Bonnie Greer and Yoko Ono.

“Woman not invisible

I see you, we hear your pain

we are the women. “

Julie Walters

ActionAid launches the book as part of their 6 degrees project, which connects women from all walks of life and from different corners of the globe.

Help support women in the developing world by pre ordering your copy today from actionaid.org.uk

This Book Will Change Your Life is hardly a modest title for an author to come up with, but then the duo behind this humorous self-help manual don’t exactly preach humility either.

Since 2003, writers Ben Carey and Henrik Delehag (jointly known as Benrick) have published the annual “This Diary Will Change Your Life”, which cleverly subverts the ubiquitous diary format into an illustrated instruction manual on how to behave on every day of the year.

This all cleverly feeds into the concept of social tribes and uniting the world for the same cause, but without an annoying buffoon like Bono or Bob Geldolf clapping their hands and spoiling your afternoon telly. Perhaps it’s my innate cynicism talking but an instruction to wear a silly hat on October 9 is much more inspiring (and more likely to happen) than me taking to the streets against an unjust political regime.

This Book Will Change Your Life is a collection of the best life-changing activities, from gems like “Discreetly give the finger to people all day” to the surprisingly philanthropic “Hire a prostitute for a non-sexual purpose”. Whenever I see books like this I’m always tempted to give it a go. But at the end of the day, I just don’t think I have it in me to buy a parrot and train it to say “Ugly Baby, Ugly Baby” – as much as I may want to.

Nevertheless, this book is a very funny collection and although I’m no social crusader like Danny Wallace, my Gran is, and this is exactly what she’s getting for Christmas.

It may seem like an impossible task but one company has pulled together a small group of writers and a few literary organisations to write a book within 24 hours, set on the same day that it will be written! Led by acclaimed author Kate Pullinger, the writers will construct their story around a group of people at allotments in South London on Saturday October 3.

The 24hr book project is an experimental publishing project, which couples online collaboration tools with new advances in publishing to create a real time story that is written, edited and published in just 24 hours. Organisers CompletelyNovel are a self-publishing and print on-demand company that has turned the publishing industry on it’s head since launching in mid 2008. Marketed as a YouTube for books, users write and share books that can be easily published through the site’s on demand printing service.

24hr book

CompletelyNovel has teamed up with if:book, The Society of Young Publishers and Spread the Word to organise a team of writers who’ll construct the final text and a team to get this published in print and online. Anna Lewis, COO of CompletelyNovel, has likened the project to the 2004 film Crash where different strands of seemingly disparate stories are woven together. The big difference here is that this story is going to be written and produced in real time.

The writers are going to need a lot of ideas and support to pull this off so the 24 hour book project wants budding authors to suggest story ideas, events happening in London, or local news on Saturday from 10am. To contribute, you can join their ning group to upload illustrations and video or tweet suggestions via the #24hrbook hashtag on Twitter.

For more information and to get involved with the project follow @24hrbook, organiser @anna_cn or lead writer @katepullinger – and don’t forget to use the #24hrbook to tweet your suggestions!

Followers if this blog will remember that this event is happening on the same day as the charity event LondonForLondon – let’s hope that gets a mention too!

The finished book will be available to read for free online and will link directly to Print-on-Demand printers so hard copies of the 24hr book will be available at the launch on Monday 5 October. Click here for your chance to register for a ticket to the event.

As we file in late, Scott explains that we are to be hearing from a panel of guests, asking questions, mingling and swapping books. Apparently, this is what people did before the internet. Tonight’s Book Swap is about literature, and ‘live social networking’.

So far, so hip. But your intrepid reporter was to be left wishing for some of that blessed anonymity that the internet provides.

Co-chairing the event is glamorous, outspoken novelist Marie Phillips, author of Gods Behaving Badly. She lightens the mood with personal revelations about her crush on David Tennant and her hatred of the Harry Potter series. Marie and Scott welcome to their sofa Robert McCrum, former editor-in-chief at Faber & Faber and, more recently, literary editor for The Observer. The final guest is Jessica Ruston, author of the dreadful-sounding Luxury, set in the world of the super-rich and their hotels.

Teething problems see the book-swapping left until the implausibly late hour of 10pm and a few awkward moments where the hosts slag off the questions offered by the audience. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all is probably the mantra for aspiring hosts. Overall though, the evening has a delightful ebb and flow as the guests sink deeper and deeper into their sofa, offering memories, observations and suggestions in response to a lively audience, and taking a lead in the book-swap process.

Over the course of two hours, topics include inspiration, perspiration, log-rolling, first dates, pet hates and comic books. We learn that McCrum loathes the Hay Festival (too much like hard work?), the standard authorial process is to re-work until you get bored, and that Jessica has been traumatised as a child by featuring on the paperback cover of her mother Susan Hill’s bestselling works. We also witness a number of excellent swaps with Scott wandering into the audience à la Graham Norton to encourage people to ‘pimp’ their poetry collections, mountaineering near-misses and slush pile nonentities.

The key figure for this first night is definitely McCrum, the elder statesman of the gathering but considered and considerate, answering silly questions where he can and making sure to bring the audience in and encourage them. His best known work is a book about recovering from a stroke, My Year Off, and it’s fascinating to hear him talk about the feedback he still gets from stroke victims and his hope that he might find God in the middle of his trouble. He didn’t. Not even remotely.

This is a great format for a literary evening: tweaks would probably include more booze, and more enforced swaps. Overall though, it’s wonderful to get such an intimate insight into the inspirations of the panelists, and the thoughts of everyone in the room about the future of books and publishing. Pack and McCrum are both at the white hot edge of net technology, promoting authors through social networks, but there’s no denying the power of Tesco’s either. And in fact, there’s a refreshing openness about blockbusting books. Nothing wrong with a few sales.

However, when it comes time to interact, the wheels fall off for Spoonfed’s representative. I get so excited by finally swapping Joseph O’Neill’s triumphant Netherland (the best book I see all night, but apparently old news to this crowd) that I go a bit manic and swap three more times in quick succession. I think this means I’m winning until I see three people looking at me in a slightly hurt manner. They liked those books, but I used them as disposable chips. Mind you, they were about travel: yuck.

The crowning social disaster of the night sees me dragging my wife out of the building before I have to face up to the victim of my crime, the lovely Marie Phillips, who has the misfortune to follow me into the disabled loo. We have to leave because I can never meet her eye again. And I bet that’s never happened to anyone on the internet.

JH

Recognising the incredible potential of using the public’s intrinsic love of fashion to promote charitable donations, St Luke’s Hospice has decided to launch their own temporary store on Thursday 30th and Friday 31st July. They will be gracing Whitecross Street Market manned to the teeth by those in the know about fashion. The store will be made of entirely donated, second hand and vintage clothes, and all designer fashion starts from a respectable £25.

The profits will be forwarded to The St Luke’s Centre, who provide help to the socially excluded in the EC1 area.

GM

Taking the concept one step further, tube passengers will have the chance to pick up an exclusive print by acclaimed British artist Richard Long, on the 2-3rd June at stops on the Jubilee Line. The free prints, will be given away between 7am – 12 noon at Stanmore, Wembley Park, Finchley Road, Baker Street, Green Park, Westminster, London Bridge, Canada Water, Canary Wharf and Stratford stations. The print is a limited edition of 60,000 pieces.

Commissioned by Art on the Underground in partnership with Tate Britain, ‘One Thing Leads to Another – Everything is Connected’, documents an eight mile walk Long took across the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland in 2007 and the things he found as he travelled. The piece aims to encourage Tube passengers to consider the nature of their city lives by providing a juxtaposition between London’s diverse, urban landscape with the rugged natural landscape he encountered in Scotland.

The piece is the first in an ongoing series of free prints marking the 30th anniversary of the Jubilee line, with three more works to be released later in the year. It also coincides with the opening of Heaven and Earth at the Tate Britain, a major exhibition of the work of Richard Long, which is set to open on Saturday June 3rd. For more information about the giveaway, please visit the Art on the Underground website. For information about Heaven and Earth, visit the Tate Britain. Visit Spoonfed for more things to do in London.

-BE

The competition is open to students in institutions of higher education worldwide, and students can enter by submitting a series of five photographs at http://www.google.com/photographyprize by May 31st. The thirty-six top entries will be selected for the shortlist and made open to an online public vote on June 11. The top six vote-winners will be flown to London for the opening night of an exhibition of their work at the Saatchi Gallery, and a panel of art critics and artists, including Idris Khan, Martin Parr, Michael Hoppen, Susanna Brown, Tim Marlow and Mariella Frostrup, will decide the ultimate winner.

For those unfamiliar with the Saatchi Gallery, it was founded by advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, and has become a renowned exhibition space for young and typically unknown artists. The sort of work displayed at the gallery tends to vary with each exhibition, though Saatchi is known for his eclectic tastes, and interest in unique, challenging and modern forms of art. For more information about upcoming exhibitions, check out our Saatchi Gallery listing at Spoonfed.

In addition, they’ve been running Create Tennis Art – a competition for people to create a piece of art or design that in some ways combines the brand’s history, Italian heritage and tennis-based origins.

First prize is €4,500 and a trip to Italy and they’ve just extended the deadline to May 10th. So what are you waiting for? Design something! Now!

Visit http://www.ellesse.com/50thAnniversary/ for more details and to enter the competition.